February 13, 2011
Ann,
May I pick your brain on a dilemma that I have long wrestled with in the story of the healing of the paralytic?
Let F = forgiving and H = healing.
Let us assume that doing the easier cannot prove that I can do the harder, only the reverse: if I can do the harder, I can do the easier. Even children in the playground often try to outdo each other in feats and accept this assumption as self-evident.
When Jesus asks the Pharisees which is easier, F or H, we are not told what they answered. We are told only what Jesus says: but to prove to you that I can do F, I’ll do H. Sometimes I think the little word “but” holds the clue as to what the Pharisees said, but I can’t quite figure it out.
Here’s the dilemma (or mine, tiny poor Pharisee that I am):
If F is easier, doing H proves that I can do F, but now I am famous mainly for doing H, the harder, i.e., performing a physical miracle, a variety of the 2 miracles (turning a stone into bread and leaping unharmed from the parapet) I rejected in the desert when tempted by Satan. I have played to the crowd. Another way to put it is: if F is easier, what’s the point of proving F? We normally try only to prove things that are difficult, unless we want to say that F is still difficult but easier than H. If F and H are equally difficult, then Jesus is asking a question impossible to answer.
If H is easier, doing H doesn’t prove that I can do F. The easier cannot prove the harder as any child knows.
Many commentators have pointed out that F is easier because F takes part in the heart of the paralytic and is not subject to verification by the eyes. When he stands up and picks up his bed, H can be seen by all. But then F is easier and we are back to the dilemma.
The reason all this puzzles me is that, the more I think about it, the more I see myself becoming a Pharisee. Ah, I’ve caught Jesus in a logical flaw. So help, if you can, Ann. Sorry to dump all this on you.
The one thing that doesn’t puzzle me is the incredible irony in the Pharisees’ question, “Who can forgive sins but God alone?” They don’t see that Jesus IS God and has all authority to forgive. Matthew’s version ends nicely by saying that the crowds glorified God for giving humans the authority to forgive sins. Jesus certainly meant us to forgive each other as we pray in the Lord’s Prayer. This indeed can be hard as we read on the front page of today’s Inquirer.
Yours,
Ron
February 14, 2011
Dear Ron,
This is quite the knot you've tied! I'm not sure if I can help or not. The short answer: I've been understanding H as the manifestation of or expression of F, like the definition of a sacrament "outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace." Isn't the interior healing always more difficult? Don't we complain about modern medicine's tendency to treat the disease not the person? I guess I think Jesus's miracle exposes the Pharisees' concern with the superficial and outward. They don't care about either F or H. They want to pin us all to our beds and keep us in a horizontal position. (Yesterday, I was realizing that that's the Pharasaic tendency I have to watch for the most -- where am I keeping others pinned down by my judgments. labeling, or expectations?)
For the paralytic, He provides everlasting healing. As Todd said, the paralytic's first reaction might have been disappointment. He wanted Jesus to say outright "get up and walk." But Jesus sees the inner need, the sense of guilt and perfectionism (this is Lytta Basset's interpretation) that may be the true source of his paralysis.Christ provides a mini-resurrection, a harbinger of his own, just like the raising of Lazarus. As usual, Christ turns the tables. The Pharisees might think F is easier. Jesus is saying that true H depends on F. The healed body will still die. The forgiven (healed) soul has eternal life.
I'll mull on this more.
Have you been reading the Barclay book? He seems to address your question as well.
Maybe you should post your dilemma on the blog and seek others' insights (alerting us by e-mail that it's there.)
Have a wonderful week.
with love,
Ann
February 16, 2011
Dear Ann,
Thanks so much for your thoughts now and in the future. I know you are a writer and must be very busy so I appreciate your taking the time for this interlude. Because you write, I thought you would be perfect for understanding the flow of the Gospel story. Maybe your husband can help us with the Greek. Has it ever happened to you that you are reading along gleefully and then, bam, a phrase or grammatical tick gets in the way? This is exactly what happened to me. When Luke didn't say what the Pharisees answered to Jesus' questions (I like the way they ask him 2 questions and he answers by asking them 2 more), I started to guess what they might have answered: F or H or "we don't know" or "equally easy" or something else. Then the famous "but" with which Jesus responds. To what does the "but" refer? Is it a "full turn" or "half a turn"? When I try to think of all the possibilities, the knot tightens. This might be because I am going in circles while the answer is as plain as day (yes, Ron Day!).
I like your insight into the internal/external person and the idea that guilt often paralyzes many people physically as well as spiritually. Jesus chooses to heal the whole person just as he did immediately before with the leper. I like to imagine Jesus looking directly into the eyes of the leper and paralytic and relating to them in an island of peace and joy while observers are left to draw their own conclusions. I'm glad you mentioned "mini-resurrection" because it makes me think that F ultimately means also that Jesus must die on the cross, something much harder than a medicine-man trick of telling the paralytic to stand and walk. When the Pharisees ask "Who can forgive sins but God alone?", they are onto something and their own actions will ultimately result in the Passion.
But for the presence of the Pharisees, this story would be a simple healing miracle. F followed by H. Hopefully the paralytic would be grateful and live out his days as a disciple of Jesus. With the Pharisees present, however, we now have interjected a major league conversation between the Lord (no longer a 12-year old boy asking interesting, non-threatening questions of his elders) and those who think they can control the religious life of the people. For God easier and harder are not categories that apply. God can turn stones into bread. God can raise up children to Abraham from stones. Gabriel says to Mary in the Annunciation that for God all things are possible. But when God becomes incarnate, F can only occur globally when Jesus dies on the cross. The miracle of the Resurrection would mean nothing without the Passion. It would be like the paralytic walking about today with artificial legs and still feeling unforgiven inside. Jesus always chooses love as when he addressed the Good Thief on the cross, "Today you will be with me in paradise".
Thus, my current feeling (it could change) is that both Jesus and the Pharisees agree that H is easier than F but for different reasons. The Pharisees believe that only God can do F because only God is almighty. Jesus knows he must die on the cross to do F because sacrifice is the only true way to win people's hearts. Doing H at the moment is a reluctant "easy" bow to our fallen nature, which must "see" and "know" by physical evidence. But how long will that proof last? On his deathbed the healed paralytic, many years later, will still have to die and have faith once again in the saving love of Jesus. So H is easier and can't prove anything. Only faith and love triumph.
Suppose the story ended with Jesus saying, "your sins are forgiven"? Would the paralytic have enough faith to accept his physical condition as well as forgiveness? Suppose the Gospels ended with Jesus dying on the cross? Would we have enough faith to believe in him still? Am I a heretic?
Ron
This blog is an on-line venue to augment our Sunday morning conversation in the front parlor of the Assumption convent for the alumni of the spiritual exercises. The word "Assumption" in the blog's title is a reference to the role that the Religious of the Assumption play in bringing us together. And "Examiner" is a reference to the role that the Examin plays in our ongoing Spiritual Exercises.
The Dramatic Dimension
ReplyDeleteIf the Pharisees say forgiving is easier, Jesus might say to them, “So why don’t you forgive the paralytic and let him be at peace?” or “But you just said that only God can forgive. Aren’t you contradicting yourselves?” If they say healing is easier, Jesus might say, “So why don’t you heal him?” Hence they are speechless. They don’t want to be embarrassed by Jesus before the crowd. This same reticence will occur in Chapter 6 when Jesus heals the man with a withered hand on the sabbath in the synagogue, the Pharisees’ home turf. The Pharisees are good at questioning but not at answering Jesus.
Easier for Whom?
For the paralytic, the Pharisees and the crowd it is easier to forgive. Ordinary mortals do not ordinarily perform miracles although modern medicine has come a long way. To forgive all one has to do is say the words, “I forgive you,” and no one can tell whether the sins are forgiven or not. For Jesus healing is easier. His words have power and immediate effect. As Satan so well knows, to be a miracle worker is easier because everyone loves miracles. Jesus can be adored so long as he doesn’t ruffle any feathers. Indeed, the Pharisees can put him to good use in their public relations department. But Jesus chooses the harder road. He forces the paralytic to acknowledge that he is a sinner in need of forgiveness. He forces the Pharisees to acknowledge that they do not have an exclusive hold on God’s forgiveness. He forces the crowd to wonder about their own sins. This road ultimately leads to the cross.
The Epistemological Dimension
Jesus says, “But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.” How do we know Jesus? By the physical miracles he performs? Did they really occur? Where are the witnesses? Were they deluded? Our age is so jaded that miracles are no longer miracles. The greatest putdown of a miracle is to say afterwards, “So what?” When computers surpass human brains in intelligence and replacement body parts become common, what’s left? Only the heart which is invisible and which Jesus addresses through faith. When Jesus forgives sins, he cuts us to the core. Are we willing to be so wounded by the merciful surgeon?
Ron Day
February 17, 2011
Ron,
ReplyDeleteAmong the people assembled around Jesus in this story are some Pharisees and others, who because of their faith, identify more readily with the paralytic and his companions. Jesus reads the hearts of both kinds of people. “When Jesus saw how much faith they (the paralytic and his companions) had, he said to the man, “Your sins are forgiven, my friend.” To the Pharisees whose lack faith cause them to ask theologically judgmental questions under their breath he asks the question that you contemplate in your letter. But he does not wait for them to actively consider the question and come up with some theological answer. This is not a dialogue. He is already aware of their hardness of heart. He proceeds directly to work the miracle which addresses both the physical concerns of the paralytic whom he has explicitly identified as his friend and the spiritual sickness of the Pharisees. Then the scripture says, “They were all (faithful and faithless alike) completely amazed! Full of fear, they praised God, saying, “What marvelous things we have seen today!”
I think in considering this story that it is more useful to identify with the paralytic and his companions than with the Pharisees who even though they physically witnessed the miracle and were amazed by it do not thereby come to accept the revelation of God in Jesus their Christ.
Ann and Todd,
ReplyDeleteI cannot thank you enough for your comments. They give me the confidence that Jesus can untie the knot I often find myself in with the paralytic. What we do in these emails and the Assumption blog is to grow with each other's comments. Isn't that wonderful? The moral is that we are better off not "tying down a passage" but allowing the imagination to open it up as Ann does with the expanded image of the mote and plank. As a writer she appreciates that the gospels are full of "one-liners" and tiny images that take time to grow into a garden.
Todd, your comment about it not being a dialogue helps me to step back and see Jesus's laser-like insight into the paralytic and the Pharisees.
From a purely linguistic perspective, I can live F being "easier but not easy" so that the prose keeps flowing. But the spring keeps bubbling up and new images, insights and words suggest themselves. Thank God or reading the Bible would be quite boring. As a group we are building up the kingdom on earth in a marvelous way. "And the word became flesh and dwelt among us."
See you Sunday.
With gratitude,
Ron